We had an AWEsomely successful brunch last weekend to start the semester off right! We enjoyed some great food with even better discussion about the upcoming events and activities of AWE this semester. We were so excited to see both old and new faces and look forward to the Fall 2018 semester! 

We are so excited that we were able to award three very deserving members of Aggie Women in Entomology our first ever travel grant award. This award was possible with the help of COALS & The Texas A&M Department of Entomology . Our winners will be able to attend a conference of their choice to present research done here at Texas A&M University! Each winner was awarded a $500 travel grant!

Stay tuned for posts regarding the talks that these three amazing women will be giving in the future!!! 

Thank you to everyone who attended our end of the year seminar "Celebrating Women in STEM". We had two incredible keynote speakers.

Dr. Cecilia Tamorindeguy's talk was titled "Key Decisions in the Journey from Student to Faculty" where she spoke to us about her own experiences and  wisdom navigating academia.

Dr. Raul Medina's talk was titled "Sexism in Academia is Over! Hello Implicit Bias" where he elucidated the movement from obvious sexism in academia to implicit bias and how we should heighten our senses on the matter. Feel free to check out this interesting research effort out of Harvard called Project Implicit: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/ . 

This seminar was wonderful and we look forward to many more wise and valuable talks from our mentors in the future.

Alex earned a travel grant award of $1,000 through OGAPS and the Career Center here at Texas A&M University. She used this grant to travel to the Southwestern Branch ESA Meeting.

Alex Payne was one of the invited plenary speakers for the Missouri State Beekeeper Association's 2018 Spring Conference. Alex gave two talks, titled "Who me sick? Transmission routes of honey bee viruses" and  "What happens when a bee gets sick? Honey bee immunology."  Read more here: https://mostatebeekeepers.org/msba-spring-conference/

Joanie King was awarded the Phi Chi Omega Osmun Scholarship. Joanie's research focuses on investigating the interactions and biology of red imported fire ants and phorid fly parasitoids. She was awarded $3,000 for this awesome award. Read more here: ​http://www.pctonline.com/article/pi-chi-student-scholarships/

Alex participated in the student oral competition that was held on May 4, 2018 at the University of Houston. There were students from a number of Texas schools including A&M, University of Houston, Rice & more! She won best oral presentation for her talk titled "Synergistic effects of in-hive miticides and agro-chemicals on honey bee (Apis mellifera) colony growth".